how to format a new computer

[galloman]

Hi all !

Thanks for your advice in my previous thread. I still have a question about liberating disc space. If I do format my macbook, how do I do it?

How is it in the OS X? I did that once on my old PC but never on a mac, this is my first mac. Please give me some advice or direct me to some guide.

also, will I be able to have all of what I originally had installed? what would I lose forever?


thanks in advance !

 

[Kaioshin]

Formatting means erasing all the information on your hard drive, so nothing would be left. You would have to reinstall OS X completely (or some other OS), but, again, nothing would remain from the previous installation; that is, if you only have one disk.

That is, unless you used some data recovery tool, which is also unlikely to work perfectly.

If you want to format your boot disk* you will have to run Disk Utility from the installation DVD of OS X. If you want to format another hard drive, flash card or whatnot, you can run Disk Utility from the /Applications/Utilities folder when running OS X normally.

*The boot disk is the disk OS X is installed on. Normally disks cannot be formatted if they are mounted, and this disk has to always be mounted in order for the operating system to work. If you boot from a DVD/another disk, you can easily not mount it or unmount it.

P.S. The format function is called Erase or something.

 

[dpaanlka]

By the way, it is nothing like on Windows.

Mac OS boot CDs actually boot into the Mac OS, from which you perform tasks with disk utility.